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A week ago, in early May 2012, the Forward Festival took place at 2nd and K Street NE in Washington, DC. Alex Goldstein and The Fridge conceived of and built a Paintagon to receive the paint of five, yes, five local teams of graffiti artists competing for the love of the audience. CHE, G8R, HK181, JAZI, LIGHT UP, ULTRA, VICE VERSA, and PORE showed up and threw up a multitude of colors and created the following pieces of work.

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with world renowned San Antonio stencil artist Scotch! at The Fridge DC for an interview. It was a fabulous day full of free stencil classes put on by The Fridge and hosted by the master himself. Ladies and gentlemen, I present, Scotch Willington III.

Decoy, a member of nonprofit art collective Albus Cavus, has been working with a group of Perry Center students to create a unique take on the work of Andy Warhol. Inspired by the exhibits currently on view at Smithsonian museums, these young artists have developed their own versions of Warhol’s famous works, such as his screen tests, cat and shoe sketches, Campbell’s soup cans and Shadows series.

This show is open at The Fridge DC until March 1st. Make sure you check it out! All proceeds from art sales support the Perry Center so they can continue this amazing work with these kids.

It’s definitely not enough to just know the rules, get a samplin’, hear the introduction…so I’m going to take you inside my first Beltway Poetry Slam with the following videos. These are the artists in the order in which they appeared.

Major thanks to Sarah Lawson for putting this together. And of course thanks to Natalie E. Illum, Regie Cabico, Gray, Slangston Hughes, Da One and Only, Angelique Palmer, Pages, Jonathan B. Tucker, Joseph LMS, Bryce Celotto, Von Da Wizard, and Danny Fox-Moles for showing up and sharing their art, their words and their stories with us. Special congratulations to the finalists Joseph LMS and Jonathan B. Tucker. And a special shout out to Danny Fox-Moles for securing the win. As always, thanks to the Fridge for hosting yet another amazing event.

Just in case you’ve never been, you have no idea, or it’s just generally seemed intimidating. Picture this, it’s November 29th, 2011. The Fridge. Southeast DC. The Beltway Poetry Slam is about to take off. These are the rules. This is how it’s done. FYI..special guest appearance by World Poetry Slam Champion 2011, Chris August.

On March 18th, 2011 I made it out to the Red Palace for the very first DC edition of Super Art Fight. This is a video I shot with my iPhone of my very first bout – the first bout of the night. The rock em sock em artists featured in this video are Brandon J. Carr of Fredericksburg, VA and Nick "Ghostfreehood" Borkowicz. The battle was long and hard, cheap shots were taken, much art was created – this video is a testament to what happened. I am happy to say that I walked away with the art work from this battle. I am still trying to figure out where to hang it!

Jonny Goldstein and I reprized our roles of host and producer yet again, except this time instead of asking the questions – he took large scale visual notes for Chris Lehman‘s keynote for MSET 2011. I, of course, shot the video. Chris is the principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, PA and talks frequently about the importance of technology in education. Jonny documents keynotes as a keynote visualizer, keynote listener, graphical facilitator – however you want to say it. Here’s what happened…

I caught a little of the sideshow/hand shaking action after Albert Maysles spoke at the American Art Museum after a screening of two of his Christo films, “The Valley Curtain” and “Christo In Paris”. He touches, with humor, on the kind of projects that are (or aren’t) being funded today, some of his own new projects, and graciously absorbs adoration from folks that came all the way from Japan to see and speak with him.

Documentary filmmaker and Guggenheim award winner Albert Maysles introduces and takes questions at the American Art Museum in Washington, DC at a screening of his film “Christo In Paris”. This was shot on the spot with my iPhone. Audio/Video quality is sub-par due to the apparatus, but the subject is priceless as always. Enjoy!

…go together like Inky, Blinky and Pinky (oh yeah, and Clyde) or so I found out this weekend at Eastern Market on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Local artist Yang Ku has a variety of geeky accessories available from Scrabble jewelry for those gung-ho for the grammatical to Thundercats and Voltron cuff links for the 80′s nostalgia collector. The items that caught my eye, however, were these Star Wars Lego cuff links. From Darth Vader to young Anakin these cuff links are perfect for any collector. Yang Ku currently resides in Baltimore, MD but makes the trip for the open air farmer’s market most weekends, weather allowing. You can check out the rest of her works on the web at Yang Ku Designs. In the mean time, feast your eyes on these…